Tumor, or neoplasm, is defined as a mass of new tissue which persists and grows independently of its surrounding structures, and which has no physiological use (Doreland's Medical Dictionary, 23 ED. 1960).
Several classifications are available for tumors: for the exploitation of this patent application, the most important are the epithelial tumors.
The epithelial tumors are neoplasms derived from epithelial cells, the type of cell which lines hollow internal organs and body surfaces; this group includes many of the most common cancers, and includes most of those developing in the breast, prostate, lung, pancreas, and gastrointestinal tract.
In some cases, the epithelial tumors can also be characterized by the presence of specific hormone-receptors in the tumor cells which gives to the tumor a hormone-sensitivity.
Carcinomas, that are malignant tumors derived from epithelial cells, make up about 85 out of every 100 cancers (85%).
One example of epithelial carcinoma is the pancreatic carcinoma (also referred to as pancreatic cancer).
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of carcinomas. The exocrine and endocrine cells of the pancreas form completely different types of tumors. Exocrine pancreatic tumors constitute the most common type of pancreatic cancer (more than 95%). Although benign (non-cancerous) cysts and benign tumors (adenomas) may develop in the pancreas, most of the exocrine pancreatic tumors are malignant.
The carcinoma of pancreas, particularly exocrine pancreas carcinoma and much more particularly the most frequent one, that is ductal adenocarcinoma, falls into the five most frequent causes of death in males, and is the fourth cause of death in females. It is one of the tumors with the highest unfavorable prognosis, with a survival of only 5% in males and 6% in the females at 5 years after diagnosis. The highest incidence occurs between 60-70 years of age (AIOM. Linea Guida Carcinoma del Pancreas Esocrino, ed. 2013).
The etiology of the exocrine pancreas carcinoma is unknown. There is a recognized genetic predisposition (familiarity) and some risk factors such as smoke, fatty diet, diabetes mellitus type 2, chronic pancreatitis, environmental factors such as solvents or pesticides.
The carcinoma of the exocrine pancreas is, in its early stage, asymptomatic, and this explains the delay in the diagnosis, which is usually performed when the disease is at an advanced stage, with exception for accidental detection during diagnostic procedures for other abdominal diseases.
Patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer typically have a poor prognosis: considering the above described delay in the diagnosis, only about 15% of cases show the tumor limited to the pancreas, whereas in the remaining cases, the diffusion to the loco-regional lymphnodes is detected in about 25% of the patients, and the presence of metastases is detected in 60% of the cases.
Median survival from diagnosis of the cancer is approximately three to six months, while a five-year survival is significantly less than 5%.
The therapy of carcinoma of the pancreas is surgery, when possible, also with palliative purposes.
Radical pancreaticoduodenectomy is currently the only chance of cure, especially for minimal disease.
The medical therapy, also associated to radiotherapy, is limited to the unresectable cases, or when metastases are present, or as adjuvant treatment after surgery. Although there are occasional reports of individual patients who respond to gemcitabine or fluorouracil, or combination regimens with doxorubicin, methotrexate, cisplatin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, erlotinib and so on, the results of chemotherapy are generally unsatisfactory and often no better than no treatment at all (Martindale, 31 ed., page 530).
Theve et al, in 1983 reviewed possible effects of sex hormones on the pancreas, based on reports on steroid receptor proteins in pancreatic tissue, the high capacity of estrogen binding protein in the human pancreas and capacity of human pancreatic tissue to convert the main peripheral estrogen, estrone sulphate, into the terminal biologically active estradiol-17 beta.
With this background, they tried tamoxifen (an antagonist of the estrogen receptor) in patients with unresectable adenocarcinoma of the pancreas with some preliminary results similar to those by Wong et al., in 1993.
The clinical practice in the subsequent years did not give the expected results, but the conclusion was that even if anti-estrogens did not constitute the optimal form of therapy, other sorts of hormonal manipulation ought to be tried in pancreatic cancer.
In view of the above, there is a strong need for new approaches of tumor treatment and, in particular, for the treatment of carcinomas, and still more especially for the treatment of epithelial tumors, especially prostatic carcinoma or pancreas carcinoma (preferably exocrine pancreas carcinoma).
A number of compounds referred to as 17α-monoesters, 21-monoesters and 17α,21-diesters of cortexolone and processes for their manufacturing are known in the art.
WO03/014141 describes compounds belonging to the family of steroids structurally related to cortexolone (also known as 11-deoxycortisone) as having mainly antiandrogenic activity. These compounds, such as cortexolone 17α-propionate, act by interfering with the direct action of the androgenic hormones on the Androgen Receptor (AR) in the tissues.
WO2007/031349 discloses C3-C10 17α-esters of 9,11-dehydrocortexolone, a derivative structurally related to cortexolone, as antigonadotrophic agent, which may be useful for the treatment disorders closely related to excess of gonadotrophin production.
WO2009/019138 discloses an enzymatic process for the obtainment of 17α-monoesters of cortexolone and of 9,11-dehydrocortexolone; furthermore, it also discloses the existence of several crystalline forms of cortexolone 17α-propionate, namely crystalline form I, form II, form III and hydrate form IV, and certain processes to obtain them.
Cyproterone acetate (abbreviated as CPA), is a synthetic steroid, which was considered as the standard therapy for the treatment of androgen-sensitive tumors, especially prostate cancer. The standard therapy with Cyproterone Acetate resulted quite ineffective in the tumors with reduced, or absent, expression of Androgen Receptor (Br. J. Cancer (1989), 60, 789-792).
It is known in the art that the presence of 17α-esterification confers to cortexolone 17α-esters different antiandrogenic activities, demonstrated in animals (Celasco et al., Arzneim-Forsch 2005; 5: 581-7).
It has now been surprisingly found that cortexolone 17α(alpha)-monoesters, 21-monoesters and 17α(alpha),21-diesters have unexpected antitumor effects, both in isolated cancer cell lines in vitro and in xenograft prostate and pancreatic cancer model in vivo into the animals.
The antitumor effect of the invention was evident both in carcinoma cells harboring Androgen Receptor (AR+), such as in the case of prostate cancer cells LNCaP or pancreatic cancer cells Panc1, and, very surprisingly, also in cells with absent, or reduced, expression of the Androgen Receptor (AR+), as prostate cancer cells PC3, or pancreatic cancer cells MiaPaca. The antitumor effect of the invention was also evident in mammary carcinomas (AR−), and gastrointestinal tract carcinomas (AR−).